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UPDATE OCTOBER 8, 2012 20 UTC (3 p.m. CDT) A major outburst of Draconid meteors apparently began at 16 UTC on October 8, 2012, seen via radar in Canada, where it was still daylight. Bill Cooke of NASA’ Meteoroid Environment Office told SpaceWeather.com:Radar rates are at 1,000 meteors per hour. This is greater than last year’s outburst, and five times the 2005 level.

Because radars are sensitive to very small meteoroids, there is no guarantee that this radar outburst will translate into meteors visible to the human eye. On the other hand, a brilliant display could be in progress. The only way to know is to go outside and look.

There’s another chance tonight (October 8) to see meteors in this year’s Draconid meteor shower. In most years, this hard-to-predict shower doesn’t offer much more than a handful of languid meteors per hour. Last year – in 2011 – the numbers soared into the hundreds. Now we have a 2012 outburst as well, despite the fact that no elevated meteor numbers were forecast for this year. You’ll definitely want a dark sky – and you should watch in the evening hours when the moon is still down (tonight’s last quarter moon rises in the middle of the night).

"Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red DRAGON with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads.His tail SWEPT A THIRD OF THE STARS FROM THE SKY AND FLUNG THEM TO EARTH." Revelation 12:3

R.H. Allen adds that; "the conclusion of the verse [Rev. 12:4] "did cast them to the earth," would show a possible reference to meteors."6 This is the earliest reference in print I have found that ties a potential Meteor shower to this section of Revelation 12. This Meteor shower that originates from the tail of Draco, the cast down dragon, is linked to its parent comet, known today as the Giacobini-Zinner Comet.

FROM SPACEWEATHER: [link to www.spaceweather.com] An outburst of more than 1000 meteors per hour on Oct. 8th is subsiding now. The Canadian Meteor Orbit Radar (CMOR) detected the surge in activity around 16:00 UT as Earth was passing through a network of debris streams from comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, source of the annual Draconid meteor shower. The outburst appears to have been caused by a filament of comet dust shed by Giacobini-Zinner in the year 1959. "This event follows in the grand tradition of short, intense Draconid outbursts," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. Visual reports of the outburst are sparse, which suggests it was faint--i.e, better seen by a radar than by the human eye. Stay tuned for updates. [CMOR radar data] [sky map] [Submit: reports or photos]